The present invention relates to a hand-held power tool, in particular a rotary hammer and/or a percussion hammer, with a housing and a vibration-damped, U-shaped handle that is resiliently supported and is movable relative to the housing.
With hand-held power tools with an impact drive in particular, such as rotary hammers, chisel hammers, and the like, the hand-held power tool may be subjected to considerable vibrations. When these vibrations are transferred to a handle that is used to press the hand-held power tool against a work piece, the operator perceives the vibrations to be uncomfortable, and long-term exposure thereto may even result in injury. For this reason, double-shelled housings, with which the entire hammer is suspended in an outer shell such that it is resilient in its working direction, have usually been used to provide linear vibration damping of rotary hammers. This design is relatively complex and expensive, however.
Publication EP 1 529 603 makes known a hand-held power tool that includes a vibration-damped C-shaped handle that is supported against the housing via springs. With this hand-held power tool, extensions of two leg parts of the C-shaped handle extend into a cavity in the housing, where they act via connecting elements on swivel arms, the motion of which is damped via springs. To synchronize the motion of the swivel arms and, therefore, the two leg parts, the two swivel arms are connected via a coupling element designed as an axle. A switch for switching the hand-held power tool on and off is located inside the hollow handle.
Publication DE 101 38 123 A1 makes known a hand-held power tool of the type described initially with a vibration-damped C-shaped handle, with which one of the leg parts is supported against the housing via a spring, and with which the motion of the two leg parts is synchronized via two coupling elements, which are hingedly connected with the handle and the housing, one of which is accommodated in the interior of the hollow yoke part in a space-saving manner.
In addition, a hand-held power tool of the type described initially was proposed in the two unpublished German patent applications that belong to this applicant, with which two coupling elements are located inside the yoke part of a hollow C-shaped handle.
By accommodating one or more coupling elements in the interior of the hollow C-shaped handle, the amount of space required inside the housing of the hand-held power tool and, therefore, their overall length, may be reduced, which, in turn, enables the amount of force required to handle the hand-held power tool to be reduced. Previously, however, a design of this type was only possible with those hand-held power tools with which a switch was not provided on the C-shaped handle, since the space available inside of it was not sufficient to accommodate an inwardly extending housing of the switch or one or more coupling elements.